servant-girl would leap and praise and thank God; and with her tidy
work for which she receives support and wages she would acquire such a
treasure as all that are esteemed the greatest saints have not
obtained. Is it not an excellent boast to know and say that, if you
perform your daily domestic task, this is better than all the sanctity
and ascetic life of monks? And you have the promise, in addition, that
you shall prosper in all good and fare well. How can you lead a more
blessed or holier life as far as your works are concerned? For in the
sight of God faith is what really renders a person holy, and alone
serves Him, but the works are for the service of man. There you have
everything good, protection and defense in the Lord, a joyful
conscience and a gracious God besides, who will reward you a
hundredfold, so that you are even a nobleman if you be only pious and
obedient. But if not, you have, in the first place, nothing but the
wrath and displeasure of God, no peace of heart, and afterwards all
manner of plagues and misfortunes.
Whoever will not be influenced by this and inclined to godliness we
hand over to the hangman and to the skeleton-man. Therefore let every
one who allows himself to be advised remember that God is not making
sport, and know that it is God who speaks with you and demands
obedience. If you obey Him, you are His dear child; but if you despise
to do it, then take shame, misery, and grief for your reward.
The same also is to be said of obedience to civil government, which (as
we have said) is all embraced in the estate of fatherhood and extends
farthest of all relations. For here the father is not one of a single
family, but of as many people as he has tenants, citizens, or subjects.
For through them, as through our parents, God gives to us food, house
and home, protection and security. Therefore since they bear such name
and title with all honor as their highest dignity, it is our duty to
honor them and to esteem them great as the dearest treasure and the
most precious jewel upon earth.
He, now, who is obedient here, is willing and ready to serve, and
cheerfully does all that pertains to honor, knows that he is pleasing
God and that he will receive joy and happiness for his reward. If he
will not do it in love, but despises and resists [authority] or rebels,
let him also know, on the other hand, that he shall have no favor nor
blessing, and where he thinks to gain a florin thereby, he will
elsewhere lose ten times as much, or become a victim to the hangman,
perish by war, pestilence, and famine, or experience no good in his
children, and be obliged to suffer injury, injustice, and violence at
the hands of his servants, neighbors, or strangers and tyrants; so that
what we seek and deserve is paid back and comes home to us.
If we would ever suffer ourselves to be persuaded that such works are
pleasing to God and have so rich a reward, we would be established in
altogether abundant possessions and have what our heart desires. But
because the word and command of God are so lightly esteemed, as though
some babbler had spoken it, let us see whether you are the man to
oppose Him. How difficult, do you think, it will be for Him to
recompense you! Therefore you would certainly live much better with the
divine favor, peace, and happiness than with His displeasure and
misfortune. Why, think you, is the world now so full of unfaithfulness,
disgrace, calamity, and murder, but because every one desires to be his
own master and free from the emperor, to care nothing for any one, and
do what pleases him? Therefore God punishes one knave by another, so
that, when you defraud and despise your master, another comes and deals
in like manner with you, yea, in your household you must suffer ten
times more from wife, children, or servants.
Indeed, we feel our misfortune, we murmur and complain of
unfaithfulness, violence, and injustice, but will not see that we
ourselves are knaves who have fully deserved this punishment, and yet
are not thereby reformed. We will have no favor and happiness,
therefore it is but fair that we have nothing but misfortune without
mercy. There must still be somewhere upon earth some godly people
because God continues to grant us so much good! On our own account we
should not have a farthing in the house nor a straw in the field. All
this I have been obliged to urge with so many words, in hope that some
one may take it to heart, that we may be relieved of the blindness and
misery in which we are steeped so deeply, and may truly understand the
Word and will of God, and earnestly accept it. For thence we would
learn how we could have joy, happiness, and salvation enough, both
temporal and eternal.
Thus we have two kinds of fathers presented in this commandment,
fathers in blood and fathers in office, or those to whom belongs the
care of the family, and those to whom belongs the care of the country.
Besides these there are yet spiritual fathers; not like those in the
Papacy, who have indeed had themselves called thus, but have performed
no function of the paternal office. For those only are called spiritual
fathers who govern and guide us by the Word of God; as St. Paul boasts
his fatherhood 1 Cor. 4, 15, where he says: In Christ Jesus I hove
begotten you through the Gospel. Now, since they are fathers they are
entitled to their honor, even above all others. But here it is bestowed
least; for the way which the world knows for honoring them is to drive
them out of the country and to grudge them a piece of bread and, in
short, they must be (as says St. Paul 1 Cor. 4, 13) as the filth of the
world and everybody's refuse and footrag.
Yet there is need that this also be urged upon the populace, that
those who would be Christians are under obligation in the sight of God
to esteem them worthy of double honor who minister to their souls, that
they deal well with them and provide for them. For that, God is willing
to add to you sufficient blessing and will not let you come to want.
But in this matter every one refuses and resists, and all are afraid
that they will perish from bodily want, and cannot now support one
respectable preacher, where formerly they filled ten fat paunches. In
this we also deserve that God deprive us of His Word and blessing, and
again allow preachers of lies to arise to lead us to the devil, and, in
addition, to drain our sweat and blood.
But those who keep in sight God's will and commandment have the
promise that everything which they bestow upon temporal and spiritual
fathers, and whatever they do to honor them, shall be richly
recompensed to them, so that they shall have, not bread, clothing, and
money for a year or two, but long life, support, and peace, and shall
be eternally rich and blessed. Therefore only do what is your duty, and
let God take care how He is to support you and provide for you
sufficiently. Since He has promised it, and has never yet lied, He will
not be found lying to you.
This ought indeed to encourage us, and give us hearts that would melt
in pleasure and love toward those to whom we owe honor, so that we
would raise our hands and joyfully thank God who has given us such
promises, for which we ought to run to the ends of the world [to the
remotest parts of India]. For although the whole world should combine,
it could not add an hour to our life or give us a single grain from the
earth. But God wishes to give you all exceeding abundantly according to
your heart's desire. He who despises and casts this to the winds is not
worthy ever to hear a word of God. This has now been stated more than
enough for all who belong under this commandment.
In addition, it would be well to preach to the parents also, and such
as bear their office, as to how they should deport themselves toward
those who are committed to them for their government. For although this
is not expressed in the Ten Commandments, it is nevertheless abundantly
enjoined in many places in the Scriptures. And God desires to have it
embraced in this commandment when He speaks of father and mother. For
He does not wish to have in this office and government knaves and
tyrants; nor does He assign to them this honor, that is, power and
authority to govern, that they should have themselves worshiped; but
they should consider that they are under obligations of obedience to
God; and that, first of all, they should earnestly and faithfully
discharge their office, not only to support and provide for the bodily
necessities of their children, servants, subjects, etc., but, most of
all, to train them to the honor and praise of God. Therefore do not
think that this is left to your pleasure and arbitrary will, but that
it is a strict command and injunction of God, to whom also you must
give account for it.
But here again the sad plight arises that no one perceives or heeds
this, and all live on as though God gave us children for our pleasure
or amusement, and servants that we should employ them like a cow or
ass, only for work, or as though we were only to gratify our wantonness
with our subjects, ignoring them, as though it were no concern of ours
what they learn or how they live; and no one is willing to see that
this is the command of the Supreme Majesty, who will most strictly call
us to account and punish us for it; nor that there is so great need to
be so seriously concerned about the young. For if we wish to have
excellent and apt persons both for civil and ecclesiastical government
we must spare no diligence, time, or cost in teaching and educating our
children, that they may serve God and the world, and we must not think
only how we may amass money and possessions for them. For God can
indeed without us support and make them rich, as He daily does. But for
this purpose He has given us children, and issued this command that we
should train and govern them according to His will, else He would have
no need of father and mother. Let every one know therefore, that it is
his duty, on peril of losing the divine favor, to bring up his
children above all things in the fear and knowledge of God, and if they
are talented, have them learn and study something, that they may be
employed for whatever need there is [to have them instructed and
trained in a liberal education, that men may be able to have their aid
in government and in whatever is necessary].
If that were done, God would also richly bless us and give us grace to
train men by whom land and people might be improved and likewise well
educated citizens, chaste and domestic wives, who afterwards would rear
godly children and servants. Here consider now what deadly injury you
are doing if you be negligent and fail on your part to bring up your
child to usefulness and piety, and how you bring upon yourself all sin
and wrath, thus earning hell by your own children, even though you be
otherwise pious and holy. And because this is disregarded, God so
fearfully punishes the world that there is no discipline, government,
or peace, of which we all complain, but do not see that it is our
fault; for as we train them, we have spoiled and disobedient children
and subjects. Let this be sufficient exhortation; for to draw this out
at length belongs to another time.
The Fifth Commandment.
Thou shalt not kill.
We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government,
that is, the divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here
now we go forth from our house among our neighbors to learn how we
should live with one another, every one himself toward his neighbor.
Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment nor
is the power to kill, which they have taken away. For God has delegated
His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of
parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring
their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore,
what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation
to any one else, and not to the government.
Now this commandment is easy enough and has been often treated,
because we hear it annually in the Gospel of St. Matthew, 5, 21 ff.,
where Christ Himself explains and sums it up, namely, that we must not
kill neither with hand, heart, mouth, signs, gestures, help, nor
counsel. Therefore it is here forbidden to every one to be angry,
except those (as we said) who are in the place of God, that is, parents
and the government. For it is proper for God and for every one who is
in a divine estate to be angry, to reprove and punish, namely, on
account of those very persons who transgress this and the other
commandments.
But the cause and need of this commandment is that God well knows that
the world is evil, and that this life has much unhappiness; therefore
He has placed this and the other commandments between the good and the
evil. Now, as there are many assaults upon all commandments, so it
happens also in this commandment that we must live among many people
who do us harm, so that we have cause to be hostile to them.
As when your neighbor sees that you have a better house and home [a
larger family and more fertile fields], greater possessions and fortune
from God than he, he is sulky, envies you, and speaks no good of you.
Thus by the devil's incitement you will get many enemies who cannot
bear to see you have any good, either bodily or spiritual. When we see
such people, our hearts, in turn, would rage and bleed and take
vengeance. Then there arise cursing and blows, from which follow
finally misery and murder. Here, now, God like a kind father steps in
ahead of Us, interposes and wishes to have the quarrel settled, that no
misfortune come of it, nor one destroy another. And briefly He would
hereby protect, set free, and keep in peace every one against the crime
and violence of every one else; and would have this commandment placed
as a wall, fortress, and refuge about our neighbor, that we do him no
hurt nor harm in his body.
Thus this commandment aims at this, that no one offend his neighbor on
account of any evil deed, even though he have fully deserved it. For
where murder is forbidden, all cause also is forbidden whence murder
may originate. For many a one, although he does not kill, yet curses
and utters a wish, which would stop a person from running far if it
were to strike him in the neck [makes imprecations, which if fulfilled
with respect to any one, he would not live long]. Now since this
inheres in every one by nature and it is a common practice that no one
is willing to suffer at the hands of another, God wishes to remove the
root and source by which the heart is embittered against our neighbor,
and to accustom us ever to keep in view this commandment, always to
contemplate ourselves in it as in a mirror, to regard the will of God,
and with hearty confidence and invocation of His name to commit to Him
the wrong which we suffer. Thus we shall suffer our enemies to rage and
be angry, doing what they can, and we learn to calm our wrath, and to
have a patient, gentle heart, especially toward those who give us cause
to be angry, that is, our enemies.
Therefore the entire sum of what it means not to kill is to be
impressed most explicitly upon the simple-minded. In the first place
that we harm no one, first, with our hand or by deed. Then, that we do
not employ our tongue to instigate or counsel thereto. Further, that we
neither use nor assent to any kind of means or methods whereby any one
may be injured. And finally, that the heart be not ill disposed toward
any one, nor from anger and hatred wish him ill, so that body and soul
may be innocent in regard to every one, but especially those who wish
you evil or inflict such upon you. For to do evil to one who wishes and
does you good is not human, but diabolical.
Secondly, under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to
his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil,
defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and
yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when
you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see
one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to
starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in
like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to
do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the
pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto for
you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit
whereby his life would have been saved.
Therefore God also rightly calls all those murderers who do not afford
counsel and help in distress and danger of body and life, and will pass
a most terrible sentence upon them in the last day, as Christ Himself
has announced when He shall say, Matt.25, 42f.: I was an hungered, and
ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a
stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick and
in prison and ye visited Me not. That is: You would have suffered Me
and Mine to die of hunger thirst, and cold, would have suffered the
wild beasts to tear us to pieces, or left us to rot in prison or perish
in distress. What else is that but to reproach them as murderers and
bloodhounds? For although you have not actually done all this, you have
nevertheless, so far as you were concerned, suffered him to pine and
perish in misfortune.
It is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water
[and struggling against adverse winds] or one fallen into fire, and
could extend to him the hand to pull him out and save him, and yet
refused to do it. What else would I appear, even in the eyes of the
world, than as a murderer and a criminal?
Therefore it is God's ultimate purpose that we suffer harm to befall no
man, but show him all good and love; and, as we have said it is
specially directed toward those who are our enemies. For to do good to
our friends is but an ordinary heathen virtue as Christ says Matt. 5,
46.
Here we have again the Word of God whereby He would encourage and urge
us to true noble and sublime works, as gentleness patience, and, in
short, love and kindness to our enemies, and would ever remind us to
reflect upon the First Commandment, that He is our God, that is, that
He will help, assist, and protect us, in order that He may thus quench
the desire of revenge in us.
This we ought to practice and inculcate and we would have our hands
full doing good works. But this would not be preaching for monks; it
would greatly detract from the religious estate, and infringe upon the
sanctity of Carthusians, and would even be regarded as forbidding good
works and clearing the convents. For in this wise the ordinary state of
Christians would be considered just as worthy, and even worthier, and
everybody would see how they mock and delude the world with a false,
hypocritical show of holiness, because they have given this and other
commandments to the winds, and have esteemed them unnecessary, as
though they were not commandments but mere counsels, and have at the
same time shamelessly proclaimed and boasted their hypocritical estate
and works as the most perfect life, in order that they might lead a
pleasant, easy life, without the cross and without patience, for which
reason, too, they have resorted to the cloisters, so that they might
not be obliged to suffer any wrong from any one or to do him any good.
But know now that these are the true, holy, and godly works, in which,
with all the angels He rejoices, in comparison with which all human
holiness is but stench and filth, and besides, deserves nothing but
wrath and damnation.
The Sixth Commandment.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
These commandments now [that follow] are easily understood from [the
explanation of] the preceding; for they are all to the effect that we
[be careful to] avoid doing any kind of injury to our neighbor. But
they are arranged in fine [elegant] order. In the first place, they
treat of his own person. Then they proceed to the person nearest him,
or the closest possession next after his body namely, his wife, who is
one flesh and blood with him, so that we cannot inflict a higher injury
upon him in any good that is his. Therefore it is explicitly forbidden
here to bring any disgrace upon him in respect to his wife. And it
really aims at adultery, because among the Jews it was ordained and
commanded that every one must be married. Therefore also the young were
early provided for [married], so that the virgin state was held in
small esteem, neither were public prostitution and lewdness tolerated
(as now). Therefore adultery was the most common form of unchastity
among them.
But because among us there is such a shameful mess and the very dregs
of all vice and lewdness, this commandment is directed also against all
manner of unchastity, whatever it may be called; and not only is the
external act forbidden, but also every kind of cause, incitement, and
means, so that the heart, the lips, and the whole body may be chaste
and afford no opportunity, help, or persuasion to unchastity. And not
only this, but that we also make resistance, afford protection and
rescue wherever there is danger and need; and again, that we give help
and counsel, so as to maintain our neighbor's honor. For whenever you
omit this when you could make resistance, or connive at it as if it did
not concern you, you are as truly guilty as the one perpetrating the
deed. Thus, to state it in the briefest manner, there is required this
much, that every one both live chastely himself and help his neighbor
do the same, so that God by this commandment wishes to hedge round
about and protect [as with a rampart] every spouse that no one trespass
against them.
But since this commandment is aimed directly at the state of matrimony
and gives occasion to speak of the same, you must well understand and
mark, first, how gloriously God honors and extols this estate, inasmuch
as by His commandment He both sanctions and guards it. He has
sanctioned it above in the Fourth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy
mother; but here He has (as we said ) hedged it about and protected it.
Therefore He also wishes us to honor it, and to maintain and conduct it
as a divine and blessed estate; because, in the first place, He has
instituted it before all others, and therefore created man and woman
separately (as is evident), not for lewdness, but that they should
[legitimately] live together, be fruitful, beget children, and nourish
and train them to the honor of God.
Therefore God has also most richly blessed this estate above all
others, and, in addition, has bestowed on it and wrapped up in it
everything in the world, to the end that this estate might be well and
richly provided for. Married life is therefore no jest or presumption;
but it is an excellent thing and a matter of divine seriousness. For it
is of the highest importance to Him that persons be raised who may
serve the world and promote the knowledge of God, godly living, and all
virtues, to fight against wickedness and the devil.
Therefore I have always taught that this estate should not be despised
nor held in disrepute, as is done by the blind world and our false
ecclesiastics, but that it be regarded according to God's Word, by
which it is adorned and sanctified, so that it is not only placed on an
equality with other estates, but that it precedes and surpasses them
all, whether they be that of emperor, princes, bishops, or whoever they
please. For both ecclesiastical and civil estates must humble
themselves and all be found in this estate as we shall hear. Therefore
it is not a peculiar estate, but the most common and noblest estate,
which pervades all Christendom, yea which extends through all the
world.